I had so looked forward to the end of 2007. On Dec 15, 2006, my dear sweet daddy passed away unexpectedly. Well, I say unexpectedly although he had fought cancer for a year. He had surgery on Nov 3 and we honestly thought he was improving and doing better. But in the wee hours of the morning of Dec 15, we received a call saying he was not doing well. I sent my husband to pick up my mother to take her to the hospital. She lived 45 mins away from us. The morning was shrouded in a thick fog, causing the normal 45 min trip to take much longer to reach my mother, then to get her to the hospital where my father had lived in ICU for six weeks. I, however, threw on my clothes and raced the 20 mins or so to the hospital. I never expected to get there and hear that he was gone. I prayed so hard the entire drive. Please let him be ok, please let him be ok. And he was. He was fine. He had crossed over. He had left his suffering and pain behind. I was the one left with the pain and the grief. I knew the minute I walked in and the doctor met me at the door that Daddy was no longer among the living. He was gone. Oh how my heart broke. I was so sorry for him. He fought so long and so hard and I know he would have loved to have fought longer. He loved his family, my mom, my sister, me , our spouses, and most especially, my two precious sons, the boys he loved more than anything. For them he would do anything. For them, he had done much. He left them a precious legacy, and many memories, admonitions, stories and more. I need to write these down. For a year I have grieved. I have worked so hard to deal with the fact that I could not fix it. I could not keep him alive. I could not keep him from dying. For the year after he was diagnosed with cancer, I was there. I was there for every radiation, every chemo, every doctor appt, every surgery, every call to 911 in the middle of the night. I was THERE. I did everything I could and it wasn’t enough. I should have found better doctors. I should have studied the situation harder. I should have been more proactive and not relied on our never ending optimism. I know this is all just talk. My rational side knows this type of talk is nonsense. But oh how my heart aches.
To mark the end of the year since his death, I returned to Amarillo TX for a planned short trip from Dec 15 (his death date) to Dec 19th (the date of his burial in Amarillo). This was my way of honoring his memory and marking the end of my year of mourning. For him, I did visit his grave and sat and talked to him and cried for some time. I also visited Paramount Baptist Church for Sunday morning services. My parents were founding members of that church and it was wonderful to look at this big, growing, very alive church and say “Dad, you did good! Look at what you left behind!”
But as John Lennon so beautifully pointed out, “life is what happens when we’re busy making other plans” (forgive me for the lack of an exact quote…you get it). My dearest, sweetest, closest, most loved cousin Judy has fought cancer for three years. It has been a horrible fight and she did the very best she could. When I arrived in Amarillo, I found out she had been hospitalized and had actually died at midnight the night before. Somehow, she returned to the living. I immediately went to the hospital from the airport. She was heavily drugged on morphine, but knew me and we talked a bit. Her husband was worrying because she had not eaten in two days. That said it all to me, knowing the end was near, but I helped her drink a few sips of Ensure, more to pacify him than anything else.
She did not want her mother, my aunt, to come see her in the hospital because she would only worry. I said that was not acceptable. I asked her if one of her children were in the hospital would she not want to visit them above all else? She realized the truth in that and so the next day, Sunday, I took my aunt to the hospital for a short visit with her daughter. It was such a little thing to do, but I was so glad I could do something to help. I was so glad to be there to see her and to talk to her and to tell her I loved her.
Early the next morning the call came, telling me Judy was gone. Even as I write this it is still surreal that she is no more. I’ve been to the funeral home for the viewing and visitation. I’ve held her cold hand and stroked her cold cheek. I have told her how much I loved her and have told her goodbye. I have been to the grave. I know she is with my dad and with her dad and they are happy and rejoicing together. Yet we are left here to mourn. I thought my year of mourning had finally ended and I could move on. And now I am pulled into this pain again.
Judy was an amazing woman, and perhaps someday I’ll write her story. It’s one that should be told. All I will tell here is that she and her husband saved my life four years ago. Four years ago I wanted to curl up and die because of marital problems. I was a shell. I felt nothing. I was just done. Because of a series of good things, I ended up staying with Judy for about a week in her beautiful home in Amarillo. My room was my refuge. A wonderful bed that wrapped its arms around me. If I chose to go downstairs, there was Judy with coffee, food, wine, talk, laughter, hugs…whatever I needed or wanted. If I chose to stay upstairs in my room all day (as I did once or twice), that was fine too. She loved me. She nurtured me. She cared for me. She brought me back to life. She gave me some of her strength and her courage and her faith and gave me the strength to return home and carry on. That week with her will always be one of the things that sustains me in the roughest of times….
She always referred to me as her sweet girl. She was six years older than I. She was more of my sister than my cousin. We grew up together. I was in her first wedding. I always wanted to be her. She had the perfect Twiggy haircut and makeup in the 60s. She had all the best LPs. She even saw the Beatles in person! Yet she never acted tired of me hanging around, literally worshiping the ground she walked on. She just loved me. She loved everyone…her family, her friends. She was love. She was loved. She will be missed more than I can ever express. My heart aches so much it is a physical pain.
And so…more days of grieving lie ahead. I’m so tired of being sad. But I thank God for the people I have loved even though they are gone. I am better for having known them, loved them and been loved by them.
